My Dixie Diary Story

Have you heard? It’s exciting news! Barbara Brackman has just recently announced her new Civil War block of the month for 2017, and it will be a companion project to the Dixie Diary project that she offered back in 2014 (I think) but this time from the Yankee point of view. Well as you know, I’m a big fan of Barbara’s blogs and have done quite a few of her annual projects, so needless to say, I’m in! But I thought I’d go back and post about my Dixie Diary project and my process that was well documented but never published online.

Starting at the beginning, one 8″ block was posted each month and as they were a smaller sized block I knew that I’d probably need to sash them to make a full size quilt. I really wanted to do something more interesting than a simple sashing and finally chose a flying geese configuration that would bring each block up to 16″. This proved to be a tonne of work but I feel it was truly worth the effort when in the end it created a secondary pattern in the background of the blocks. One thing I should mention though, although the blocks now measured 16″ the quilt was still not as large as I had hoped, and so I created eight more blocks to bring the quilt up to size. It was an easy solution and I pulled out my Civil War Sampler book by Barbara Brackman to choose some of my favourites to compliment the original twelve blocks.

It was now time to put all twenty blocks on the design wall and get ready to sew them together into a four by five block setting and it was fun playing with placement to see how the alternating light and dark flying geese created interest in the design of the quilt. As exciting as all this was, after sewing all the blocks together, the quilt top lingered on the design wall for about six months. You see, it just didn’t seem complete somehow, even though it had turned out the way I had envisioned it. There was definitely something missing and I truly struggled to figure out exactly what that was. The size was great and I had initially not even considered a border but in the end that’s what was needed as the finishing touch to this quilt. All it required was a simple border and, after searching through my stash, I found a Civil War reproduction stripe that would fit the bill. The stripe gave me the perfect opportunity to try my hand at a mitered border for the very first time.

As this quilt had turned out a generous size (72″ x 90″), I decided to order some reproduction toile-style fabric online, but when it arrived I was disappointed to see that the colour was just too ‘clean and pure’ for the style of the quilt top. Rather than order more yardage I chose to overdye the pink fabric with a medium tan to create a vintage tea dyed look that would be much warmer and more in keeping with the fabrics used in the quilt top. Dyeing over eight meters of fabric in my kitchen sink created an imperfect mottled effect that worked great for the style of the quilt, giving it a more authentic reproduction look and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

I quilted large free motion feathers over the entire surface of the quilt, lending it a rich crinkly texture, and hand bound it with a dark tan dot fabric to finish it off. This piece is one of my favourites and I can’t wait to start Barbara’s Yankee Diary in 2017.

As always, carol